“Hmm…”
We all murmured to one another. Then:
“Will you stop ignoring me?!”
“Whoa!”
I leaped up at the sound of someone shouting in my ear. Momiji was there, fuming and sick of waiting any longer. This time, I definitely couldn’t tune her out.
I gave up and sat back in my seat, facing her.
“Let me ask you a question. Does Frey have ambitions on tengu territory?”
“Huhhh? Of all the stupid things to ask…” She rolled her eyes, then realized I was being serious. “You’re kidding me,” she muttered.
It sounded like we weren’t on the same page at all here, so I decided to let her tell her side of the story.
As she put it, Frey’s aim was to capture Elmin Thalion, capital of the Sorcerous Dynasty of Thalion. She wanted it not for its territory, but for its height.
I sure wasn’t expecting that. It was very in character for her, but I couldn’t laugh about it.
In terms of size, Thalion was a huge country. Frey didn’t have the military resources to overwhelm it. However, while the nation enjoyed a geographical advantage against ground-based armies, against Frey and her aerial forces, they would face tougher going. Tactically, they were an even match, but Frey refused to let her ambitions stay just ambitions forever.
That was why she had turned her attention on the tengu. She wanted to bring them under her rule, shoring up her resources for a later assault on Thalion. But the tengu were too proud for that, not ready to so easily accept Frey’s demands. Thalion, expecting this, hoped for the two sides to erupt into conflict with each other, which would take the heat off them and also let them profit from the ensuing war.
Frey was fully aware of that, however, and that stayed her hand. The result was this three-way détente that, frankly, looked pretty twisted to me.
While all that was going on, I fought against Clayman, and once the dust settled, Carillon and Frey gave up their posts and resolved to serve the demon lord Milim. It was the birth of a new superpower, one the tengu alone could never fend off, and now their government was in a heated debate over how to hold themselves going forward.
And then Benimaru came along, taking one of the Three Lycanthropeers with him. Bad idea. Momiji mistook that as my attempt to silently apply pressure on her.
“How’s Frey been lately?” I asked Geld. As the person responsible for building a new capital city, he had been taking orders from Frey, making him the most familiar with her out of our little group.
“Well, Sir Rimuru, Lady Frey seems tremendously satisfied with your plans. As taciturn as Mildo is, the two have gotten along well, and she’s been participating in some very detailed planning meetings.”
Frey found a way to make Mildo talk? That’s impressive.
“All right. So has she lost interest in Elmin Thalion?”
“Lost interest? I’d say her interests lie in…um…”
“In?”
“Well… Lately, I haven’t seen Lady Milim around. Lady Frey had been teaching her about governance and the like, but apparently she ran off on her unawares.”
Oh, right. I’m pretty sure I know where she is. For the sake of this conversation, though, let’s pretend that I don’t. Let sleeping dogs lie, and all that.
“As a result, I’d say that Lady Frey’s primary focus at the moment is figuring out where Lady Milim went,” concluded Geld.
The gigantic capital building project, skyscrapers and all, had completely charmed Frey. It turned her interest away from any other potential capital she could conquer; they all paled in comparison. Milim, as Geld put it, was the bigger issue. And Momiji, listening to all this stuff going against what she imagined, was stunned into silence, unable to figure out how to react.
I couldn’t blame her. That’s reality for you—a force who you assume wants you and your people dead, and all of a sudden, their focus is on something else entirely. If it happened to you, you’d probably want to run away from reality, too.
“…All right. I understand. So there you have it. If you recognize all that as the misunderstanding it was, I’m cool with that.”
It could be said that tengu were not terribly wise in the ways of the world. The worry that they were surrounded by enemies had clouded Momiji’s judgment. Based on her situation, I could see why she made the decision she did.
“So I was imagining it all along…? Mother did say I was overthinking matters…”
She slumped back in her chair, the strength drained from her body. It was a lesson for all present: Jumping to conclusions can bite you hard.
With that behind us, our talks quickly came to a close.
Since Momiji was still a little out of it, one of the tengu warriors looked over the pact we were to sign in her stead. I thought these were bodyguards, but I guess they served as government staff, too.
The tunnel question would be saved for later. We wouldn’t be allowed to start on it, I was told, until we could prove it was safe. That made sense to me, so I didn’t make a big deal out of it. We needed to talk to Thalion about building a tunnel anyway, and it wouldn’t really get underway until we finished developing trains, so there was no need to set anything in stone quite yet.
The tengu didn’t want us to interfere with them because they mistakenly thought we were prepping for an invasion, but now that we’d addressed that misunderstanding, nothing stopped us from having normal relations. So we agreed to help each other out, in case something ever happened.
“…So is that all?”
“Yes,” the tengu aide said with a bow. “My thanks to you, Demon Lord, for allowing us to conduct such constructive negotiations.”
So things were square with Momiji. Our pact was signed. Now we needed to talk about Momiji and Hakuro’s
